On the Record

There’s a tendency, even among too many people of good faith and good politics, to shy away from asserting and admitting this simple fact because Wilson has either gone on too many TV shows or preened too much in some photo shoot. But that is disreputable and shameful. The entire record of this story has been under a systematic, unfettered and, sadly, largely unresisted attack from the right for four years. Key facts have been buried under an avalanche of misinformation. The then-chairman of the senate intelligence committee made his committee an appendage of the White House and himself the president’s bawd and issued a report built on intentional falsehood and misdirection.

No one is perfect. The key dividing line is who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. Wilson is on the former side, his critics the latter. Everything else is triviality.

From day one this story has been about official lies — corrupt power buttressed by fraud. Along the way it became a story about the president’s hireling commentators who lost their honor by becoming part of the fraud. What Wilson said was true. His attackers are all parties to the same lie. Don’t forget that.